Daughters in My Kingdom has been approved along with other resources to help you as you plan additional Relief Society meetings. Use the history book as you consider and counsel together about how to teach the approved topics listed in Handbook 2, 9.4.2.
“In planning these meetings, Relief Society leaders give special attention to topics that the bishop has asked them to address to help meet local needs. Leaders also give priority to the following topics: Marriage and family, homemaking, self-reliance and provident living, compassionate service, temple and family history work, and sharing the gospel” (Handbook 2, 9.4.2).
Examples and sample applications from the history follow the handbook topics listed below:
Marriage and Family
Preparing for marriage and family, strengthening marriages, motherhood, early childhood education, preparing youth for future responsibilities, encouraging and preparing for family home evening, and strengthening extended family relationships.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 149:
President James E. Faust said, “Because you mothers are the heart and soul of any family, it was appropriate that it [the proclamation] was first read in the general Relief Society meeting.” (Refer to pages 166–67.)
What classes might you plan to help sisters practice the principles taught in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 165:
“The righteous woman … has been placed here to help to enrich, to protect, and to guard the home” (Spencer W. Kimball).
What classes or workshops could help sisters learn to make their homes places of gospel teaching and living?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 17:
“Joseph Smith taught principles that helped Relief Society sisters 'relieve the poor' and 'save souls'—foundational principles upon which the society was built … to increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes, and seek out and help those in need.”
What could you plan that would help sisters improve in areas of their lives such as scripture study, parenting, marriage, and service?
Homemaking
Learning and improving skills for the care of the home and family, such as cleaning and organizing, home beautification, cooking, and sewing.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 156:
“If one has a good mother she has a good home, and if she has a good Relief Society mother she may be assured wisdom and a good influence will pervade the home.” (Belle S. Spafford)
What type of meeting, workshop, or conference will teach skills and inspire sisters to create a home where the Spirit can dwell?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 5:
“Paul … wrote of the influence of wise, experienced older women. He counseled Titus to encourage older women to serve and teach young women about their eternal roles as wives and mothers, 'that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children' (Titus 2:4).”
What could you plan that would involve older sisters in your ward or branch in teaching younger women to improve marriage, parenting, or homemaking skills?
Self-Reliance and Provident Living
Finances (budgeting, debt relief, and employment qualifications); education and literacy (studying the scriptures and learning the gospel, teaching others to read, tutoring children and youth, choosing children’s literature, using computers and other technology, and developing cultural awareness); health (physical health, fitness, addiction prevention and recovery, social and emotional health, and preventing illness); gardening; food production and storage; and emergency preparedness.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 51:
“Latter-day Saints are counseled to do all they can to provide the temporal necessities of life for themselves and their families.” (See pages 51–56 for examples.)
What kind of classes or workshops will help sisters learn the skills to take care of their needs, regardless of their circumstances? For example, how might they learn about planning and preparing simple and nutritious meals, producing and storing food, or promoting good physical health?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 71:
“We … urge … people … [to live] strictly within their incomes; and [to lay] aside something, however small the amount may be, for the times of greater stress that may come to us” (First Presidency, 1933).
What could you do in a meeting to help sisters become more temporally self-reliant in areas such as budgeting and education?
Compassionate Service
Care of the sick, elderly, homebound, disabled, and poor and needy; support for new mothers and babies; and humanitarian and community aid.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 37:
“After [the Relief Society sisters] had done all they could to help the handcart pioneers, they continued to help others. … 'What comes next for willing hands to do?' ”
What kind of project, workshop, or class could be used to teach sisters how they can be an influence for good in their home, the Church, and the community?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 103:
“We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness. … We are the Lord's hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us” (Thomas S. Monson; see also chapter 7 in its entirety).
What could you focus on in a workshop or conference that will help your sisters serve as inspired, compassionate, faithful visiting teachers?
Temple and Family History
Collecting and preserving family history information, writing family histories, preparing for the temple, and doing temple work.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 25:
“Every sister in this Church who has made covenants with the Lord has a divine mandate to help save souls, to lead the women of the world, to strengthen the homes of Zion, and to build the kingdom of God” (M. Russell Ballard).
What could you plan that would prepare sisters to participate more fully in temple work?
Daughters in My Kingdom, pages 20–21:
Review the Sally Randall story in Daughters in My Kingdom.
How could you organize an additional meeting, class, or workshop to help sisters experience the joy of family history work?
Sharing the Gospel
Member missionary efforts, fellowshipping new and less-active members, neighborhood outreach, activation and retention, welcoming new sisters into Relief Society, and preparing for full-time missions.
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 44:
“If any of the daughters and mothers in Israel are feeling in the least [limited] in their present spheres, they will now find ample scope for every power and capability for doing good with which they are most liberally endowed” (Eliza R. Snow).
What kind of service might you plan that could involve sisters of other faiths in your area?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 84:
“Ours is a healing mission requiring the larger heart, the kindlier touch, the steadier will” (general Relief Society presidency, 1947; see also pages 87–96 for examples of reaching out and influencing others through gospel service).
What might you plan to help your sisters reach out to less-active members, recent converts, and those not of our faith?
Daughters in My Kingdom, page 164:
“A mother in Brazil lived in a home that was made of red brick in a yard of red soil surrounded by a wall of red brick. The music of Primary songs filled the air, and pictures cut out from the Liahona of temples, prophets of God, and the Savior covered the walls. She and her husband sacrificed to be sealed in the temple so their children could be born in the covenant. Her constant prayer was that the Lord would help her and give her strength and inspiration sufficient to bring up her children in the light, truth, and strength of the gospel so that they would be able to make and keep the covenants she and her husband had sacrificed to provide for them.”
What classes or workshops might you plan to help sisters prepare their sons and daughters for missions?
Daughters in My Kingdom, pages 128-29:
“Sister Elizabeth Ann Whitney, who attended the first Relief Society meeting, … [said], ‘As soon as I heard the Gospel as the Elders preached it, … I knew it to be the voice of the Good Shepherd.’ She ‘was baptized immediately.’… Recalling this experience, she told of the blessings she received through the priesthood ordinances of baptism and confirmation: ‘If there are any principles which have given me strength, and by which I have learned to live more truly a life of usefulness, it seems to me I could wish to impart this joy and strength to others; to tell them what the Gospel has been and is to me, ever since I embraced it and learned to live by its laws.’”
What could you do in a meeting to help sisters prepare themselves to serve as missionaries?
